scooping poop for disneyland

to-do lists seem to be the bane of every relationship. ours is no exception. sometimes i will get home from a long day at work just as mrs. blogmaster is heading out to yoga, the latest birthday dinner party, book club, church youth activities or some other extracurricular event but not before she slips me a to-do list. to put it nicely, i hate it. generally, the last thing i want to do when i get home from work is more work, but that's the way it is.

thing is, i'm not any better in that some mornings i'll wake up, get dressed, and jet off the work only to send mrs. blogmaster an email of to-do items that she can busy herself with during the day (it's not like she has myriad other things she has to get done). to put it lightly, she hates it.

thus, the moral of the story is that we've both learned the hard way that to-do lists are a menos eficaz (that means less effective in spanish) way of making deposits in one's emotional bank account. in fact, it typically has just the opposite effect. as such, we tend to only make these types of requests when there has been a recent direct deposit in the emotional bank account such that the emotional cup runneth over. on the other hand, sometimes we don't care if the account is overdrawn and just want the other spouse to get something done we don't want to do ourselves (how's that for mixing metaphors? does anyone even have an idea of what i'm talking about anymore?).

moving on...

as with all things blogmaster related, there is, of course, some endearing anecdotal evidence, sitting as an illustrative backdrop, against the moral of this story which you zombies should wisely view through the ever-changing to-do list lens of life.

partake...

if memory serves, i was the latest perpetrator in the union of mrs. blogmaster and myself to unleash a to-do list on the better half. one of items on this to-do list included: make sure you sign us up for disney's give a day get a day. for those unfamiliar with this type of sorcery, the bottom line is that if you sign up to volunteer a day's worth of service for some noble cause, then you get a free ticket to disneyland. not a bad deal if you think about it: volunteer a day and get something in return. nothing says charitable service like a quid pro quo beneficial arrangement. thus, in the spirit of providing philanthropy with the intent of being compensated for it, i thought the cooperfive might as well throw our collective mickey mouse eared hats into the ring and get some free tickets to disneyland by serving our fellow human beings.

thing is, i didn't actually end up serving human beings... i served animals. pets at a pet fair to be more specific.

yes, you read my words correctly. my lot in this whole ordeal was to serve animals at a pet fair. to my pleasant surprise, i only discovered my assignment upon receiving my confirmation email from the program. at first i was pretty stoked since as an active member of the mormon church and an eagle scout i have had plenty of opportunities to serve; however, these opportunities have usually involved manual labor and physical exertion. it is not uncommon for me to profusely sweat or hurt myself during a mormon service project... and all for something we generally refer to as "blessings", not tickets to disneyland.

lest ye think i'm complaining, i'm not. i enjoy helping out where i can, i'm just saying that service for me doesn't traditionally involve helping out at a pet fair. it usually involves blazing a trail in the vegas heat or carrying a piano up the stairs on my back. a pet fair sounded like a nice change-up from the usual... kind of fun, actually. i especially got excited when i saw that part of the job description included being a pooper scooper. rad.

to illustrate...

having grown up a cooper, i heard my fair share of cooper pooper scooper name calling. as funny as is to hear that over one bizziliion times as a kid, it's still a barrel of laughs when i hear it today as an adult... even like three moths ago when someone dropped it on me at church. i was laughing so hard that i wasn't laughing at all. name calling is one thing, but with this pet fair, though, i had the opportunity to actually put my money where others' mouths had been for so long in that i could actually dig in and scoop some poop, thus, earning my rightful moniker.

funny thing is, on the other end of this machination mrs. blogmaster anxiously awaited my reaction thinking i would be bummed about an assignment that involved scooping up canine feces given my sour disposition towards coddling pet owners, coddled pets and, one could safely assume, their poop... au contraire mon frere! for, unbeknownst to me, mrs. blogmaster had specifically chosen pooper scooper duty as my service project in direct retaliation for my having left her a to-do list which included signing us up in the first place. the funnier thing is that i was actually looking forward to the event for some odd reason... maybe i was because of its potential blogability. how's that for backfired, lover?

unfortunately, i didn't really get to scoop any poop as there wasn't much excrement left on the ground at the event. either all the dogs were constipated or the owners were responsible enough to clean up their own stuff. i'm not sure. i did get to count some dogs, hand out some doggie bags, and assist in unpacking a car to help set up a ferret display, though. it was good times.

i especially enjoyed the idiosyncrasies of the near fanatic pet-owner crowd. they definitely are their own culture. in fact, i once authored a blog post touching on my feelings towards those who seem to value their pets more than their offspring (although, i think some of this crowd can't tell the difference anymore).

i'm not hating on the peta type, their hearts are in the right place and maybe the pets are all they have... to which i say, i'm glad you have someone. but then there's the couple with the ferrets that seem pretty normal on the surface, but upon closer look something just doesn't seem right and i have to wonder...

for instance, how does that first conversation about being a ferret owner (and not just any ferret owner, but a multiple ferret owner that goes to pet fairs to parade ferrets) go over with the significant other for the first time? maybe there's some bar or online dating site where pet lovers go to chat/hang out and there's this pretense that everyone involved is little over the moon for their pets. if that's the case, then fine: caveat emptor... that's one thing (although, with the stigma on-line daters already have, do you really want have the potential for weird to the second power by making it an on-line dating website for ferret groupies?).

in contrast, if the conversation is more of a coming out of the closet event in the sense that it's a sudden "hey, i know we just met, but i've got to tell you that i'm really into ferrets... i mean really into ferrets! i've got five of them that i parade at pet fairs every once in a while. they're a big part of my life. are you down with that?" well, then that's quite another situation.

and then i have to wonder if there's even proper etiquette in that culture to govern when such news is properly sprung. is it proper to lay it all on the line during the first meeting/date? or is there some more strategery involved in the sense that one is better off waiting until a few dates have gone by and here's some emotional investment already in the bag? inquiring minds want to know.

hey, if you want to refer to your pets as your children, more power to you. i get the bond. i cried every time we lost a pet as a kid. in fact, i got a little emotional when i just found out my parents took the cat we all hated to the pound the other day... and i seriously disliked that thing. i get it. i just don't get the dog strollers. unless your dog is injured, old, or legless, dog strollers are an abomination to humankind.

in summary, the service project was fulfilling. it was especially fulfilling when i printed out the free vouchers for disneyland yesterday. at least i got to do something interesting like count dogs rather than something boring like prepare meals for homeless people like mrs. blogmaster did. where's the fun in that? my mom, on the other hand, takes the cake. special k's project consisted of her reading to birds. i said birds.

what is this world coming to? do i need to remind you all of what happens to the humans on planet of the apes? consider yourselves warned.

jameson presents on bugsy seigel: it's what we've always wanted as parents... that our son could portray a gangster

jameson recently had to do a project for class on a famous nevadan. at first when he told me about it, he said the person had to have been born in nevada and that the person had to be dead. that really narrows the field quite a bit seeing as how hardly anyone is actually born in nevada anymore. everyone's a transplant. and anyone who is famous and from nevada, is still alive.

the obvious choice would be the blogmaster since i am a proud native, problem is, i'm still alive and i wasn't about to take one for the team just so the boy could do a presentation on me. when jameson first told me about the project, i spent some time in deep thought trying to be a helpful parent, but wasn't really able to come up with anyone. after a while i just forgot about it and figured he or mrs. blogmaster would figure it out.

next thing i knew, he had been given the option of presenting on bugsy seigel or benny binion. ah yes... two of nevada's favorite sons. we nevadans can all hold our heads high in honoring the memory of these two examples of model citizens who blessed our great state with their presence and respective contributions. oh, that every parent could have a son or daughter grow up to be a gangster/murderer who establishes mafia run gaming in a desert town before being taken out by the mob himself. on the other hand, if the mafia is out of reach or one doesn't want to set his/her sights quite so high, each child can still set his/her sights on opening a trashy casino or two and be implicated in a murder and other crimes. allegedly. we should all be so lucky.

virginia has chumps like thomas jefferson and george washington, but we've got bugsy and benny... at least our guys didn't own slaves. apparently, the teacher changed the requirements of the assignment since bugsy wasn't born in nevada. i just think it's funny that nevada's heritage lies in a bunch of knuckleheads like these dudes. on the other hand, what else should i expect from a town that lives and dies the poker table? besides, i shouldn't judge... we've all been faced with the option of: should i kill this guys or not... he's losing me money? it's not an easy choice to deal with.

back to jameson...

so, jameson put together a report on bugsy's life along with creating a tombstone replica of bugsy's tombstone. i helped jameson with the report and ended up researching bugy's life quite heavily by skimming wikipedia. first, let me just say that writing papers for kids these days is so much easier than it was when i was a kid thanks to the internet. i can't complain though, 'cause i can't imagine going through college or law school without the internet either.

thing is, i think kids shouldn't even waste their time learning how to write anymore... what's the point? if someone wants to learn latin, morse code, how to use a rotary dial phone, a fax machine or how to write, then to each his own; but, do it on your own time. schools should be teaching kids how to type from 2nd or 3rd grade on. to people like mrs. blogmaster, penmanship is an art that should not be undervalued... i say, bullocks, it's an inefficient waste of time, especially for error prone kids. word processing for kids would make every parent's life easier... plus, end products would look much better.

the reason i bring this up is because jameson had to hand write his report. no big deal, if you get it all right the first time. but not so good when you have to erase a few times here and there with a cheap eraser... after a while the report starts to look like an ancient manuscript that survived a world war or two. so, instead of having more time to do important things like play x box or watch the suite life of zach and cody (kill me now), jameson has to re-write his paper. consequently, while elementary school kids and the guys who still use those really old school printing presses that required you to place every letter on a page in backwards in order to print it are wasting their time with that stuff, the rest of us are typing blogs, emails, books, and the like in a fraction of the time.

can you imagine if i had to handwrite this blog? one good thing is that my posts would probably be shorter. but, they wouldn't be nearly as legible and they'd probably be less coherent than they already are.

back to jameson again...

at some point that night before his project was due, we finished it. i was pretty involved in helping, maybe too involved... but that's debatable. i couldn't let him turn in garbage when it comes to writing, i just couldn't... not the blogmaster's son. it was actually an oral report he was going to be giving, as well, not just a paper he turned in. so, i'm sitting at work the next day and i get a voicemail from jameson saying that the vice principal liked his paper so much that he wanted jameson to come back the next day to be videotaped as he presented it.

my first thought was, uh oh, was i a little too helpful on jameson's project? but, i quickly rationalize it all (a git we lawyers have) figuring it was all good since wikipedia was literally the sole source of research for the project and he physically wrote it out. all i helped him with was sentence structure, grammar, overall paragraph organization, and research. not that much, really. anyway, like i said, he did write it out all by himself... three times. let's just say, jameson tries to get his homework done before i get home so his mom will check it and go over it with him instead of me. it's funny, because i learned that lesson early on in life, as well (to avoid having my dad help me with homework). thing is, from about 2nd grade on my mom wasn't able to help with any of my math homework... that stuff was way too complicated for her.

bottom line: jameson did a splendid job preparing and presenting his report on someone who should be very close to all nevadans' hearts: bugsy seigel. if you live here, hang a picture of him on your wall next to Jesus (or moses, if you're jewish, or oprah or any holywood star if you're spiritual, but not religious, etc.).

here's some pics of jamebo and his ilk looking very debonair in his gangsta' get-ups:

The backyardagain...

First of all, this is Aimee and I’m not a huge fan of the all lowercase lettering (or of Jeremy referring to the months Feb, Mar, Apr and May as “the gauntlet”), so you will be seeing some capitalization.

I feel I need to clarify some things regarding the backyard. First, I want to make it clear that I don’t want to discredit Jeremy’s manhood or underestimate any of the hard work he has done, nor do I want to come across ungrateful. But, you should know that when I describe the backyard to people I refer to it as a ‘dog run’ because it is more the size of a dog run than a backyard. Yes, it has actually brought tears to my eyes on more than one occasion as I look at the very small area (which is about 6 feet from the back door to the back wall) our 3 boys have to be boys in.

In fact, last year, just after we’d moved in Jameson was arguing with me over whether we actually had a backyard or not. He kept saying we didn’t have a backyard and I kept saying that we did. (It was one of those moments as a Mom when you totally see where your child is coming from, but you are doing your best to make the situation as good as you can.) Jameson finally came out and said to me, “Our backyard is too small to be a backyard just like Pluto’s too small to be a planet!” This was the first of probably many times to come where Jameson left me speechless. I did laugh. Well said, Jameson. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Jeremy so proud when I told him what Jameson had said. Jeremy felt Jameson was already ready to take the LSAT!

So, although Jeremy has done a wonderful, not to mention beautiful job with the backyard, I just want to make sure no one is picturing what I would envision a standard yard to look like- it is more like a dog run.

a

the backyard

we are just about done with a feat of no small proportions (even though it was accomplished on a very small portion of land): our backyard. we have been in our house for over a year now and during this entire time we did not have a landscaped backyard. this, of course, isn’t the worst thing in the world, unless, of course, you have three boys that are borderline ADD candidates in which case only summertime in lv without ac and sitting through a ute defeat over byu are only worse (excluding sin and all that more seriously bad stuff, of course). so, aimee and i were intent on putting in a backyard this year and sometime before the heat induced comas brought on by june, july, and august in lv arrived.

to kick things off, we spoke to several landscapers in an attempt to get a bid on what it would cost to install the backyard of our dreams on our little plot of land. we were somewhat disillusioned by the responses we got as the landscapers either wanted to turn our backyard into a concrete jungle or charge us too much money to do what we wanted. the guys just wouldn’t listen, or maybe they were listening and just didn’t understand english. consequently, we looked at the budget, totally ignored it, and called shane marlowe.

who is shane marlowe you ask? shane is probably the best looking ward clerk to ever serve in that capacity in the history of the church. it just so happens that shane is also very experienced in working with his hands… he’s from rexburg, idaho for crying out loud. i have only met a few other people from the st.anthony/driggs/rexburg, idaho area, and in spite of their penchant for calling a remote control the “channel box”, a movie theatre the “show house”, or an automobile an "outfit" (so, if shane compliments you on your outfit, it is possible that he is referring to your car and not your matching j crew spring wear) they are actually pretty stellar individuals (and i am not just saying that because my in-laws are from that area).

that being said, i must pause to consider whether shane’s good looks and exceptional ability to work are properly attributable to his idaho roots or the fact that he served a mission in argentina. you see, shane served in a mission where real men go: argnetina resistencia. it is entirely possible that shane’s dashing good looks and exceptional work ethic are a direct result of his time in the argentina resistencia mission. pretty much everyone i know who served in that mission and worked hard is now good looking and has a solid work ethic to boot.

in the spirit of full disclosure, i feel compelled to admit that i, too, served in argentina resistencia mission, and it just so happens that i was there when shane arrived as a young green pup ready to tear up the campo.  and to support my theory, i don’t remember shane being nearly as good looking when he arrived as he is now; so, there you go: shane fell prey, as many of us did, to the benefits of serviving in the argentina resistencia mission and left the humid plains of chaco, argentina a better looking man and a harder worker than when he arrived. of course, you are free to decide the merits of my proposal yourselves, but i felt it important that you have all of the background information so as to make a fully informed decision on your own.

back to the backyard: i had shane come over because we needed some concrete in the back and i wanted it stamped and stained and i knew that shane was skilled in the ways of stamped and stained concrete. i thought if he and i did the concrete by ourselves, aim and i could save some sweet moula on the project and be one step closer to the backyard of our dreams. i explained this to shane as we stepped out into the backyard on a pleasant friday evening to discuss business... leaving the women and children safe inside, of course, i was met with a surprising reaction. after shane briefly surveyed the lay of the land, he confidently proclaimed that he and i could do all of the backyard (not just the concrete) by ourselves in just a few days. i got nervous. i have an issue with commitments. especially ones that are time consuming (i am in law school and i have a job and a family... in reverse order of importance, of course).

while i did not doubt shane’s hardy vision of he and i completing what seemed to me a gargantuan project (given my skill-set for landscaping matters), i found it hard to believe anyone working in tandem with me in landscaping matters could accomplish such a task. moreover, i did not share shane’s seemingly apparent disdain for paying someone to do manual labor on my behalf. i think there is some unwritten law that lurks in the potato fields of idaho and that seeps into the hearts and minds of all idaho farm boys that creates some kind of genetic phenomena that physically disallows them from paying someone to do work they can do themselves (maybe that’s why shane is in way better shape than i am). in fact, shane was ready to start working on the yard that night (i think shane does this kind of stuff over breakfast... in fact, i think shane took over the construction of his home, sent the workers home and finshed building his own house about half way through just because he could).

thus, whenever i tried to suggest to shane that i could just hire a landscaper to do everything except the concrete, he would look at me as though i were less of a man… or at least less of an argentina resistencia returned missionary. my manhood and my missionaryhood had been challenged and i could not back down, and so i agreed. neither of our wives were terribly thrilled at the suggestion, but the stars were aligning as shane was in between jobs at the time and i was about to have spring break.

so, the project began and, all in all, thanks to shane’s expertise and assistance, it wasn’t that bad. it felt good to get out of the office and stretch the muscles a little. i learned a lot about cleaning tools while the more skilled participants poured concrete as well as returning the wrong equipment i bought for the right stuff.  most importantly, though, the backyard turned out really, really, really nice. if you don’t believe me, check out the pictures. come roll around on the fake grass if you like (fully-clothed, of course). by the way, i uploaded the pics myself… as if i would pay someone to do that for me.